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Deepening Point Of View – Cheat Sheet

Learning new words in the writing world has its challenges, but capturing the meanings and applying them can be a difficult task. My mental dictionary sent scrambled definitions through the memory chambers of my mind as I struggled to understand. Deepening point of view (POV) was mind-boggling. What did it really mean?

In DiAnn Mills new release The Character of Dance & Plot; she defines POV this way- Point of view refers to the character who is experiencing the scene with sensory perception. Writers are instructed to write the scene in the POV character who has the most to lose.

Cindy Sproles defines POV in her book Learning the Lingo as – Point of view, simply put, is whose head are you in? The reader sees the action through the eyes of the primary character in a chapter.

My shelves overflowed with educational books on how to write an exceptional novel. Each of them suggested deepening POV. I fought with the concept and how to put it into action. It wasn’t until someone from my local writers group simplified the term and suggested I read Rivet Your Readers with Deep Point Of View by Jill Elizabeth Nelson.

DiAnn, Cindy, and Jill’s books explain deepening POV in more detail, and I recommend them to anyone desiring more clarity on the subject. From that conversation with another writer and by reading the suggested books, I developed my personal cheat sheet:
WHEN DEEPENING POV AVOID USING:

The list may be simple but it projects powerful insight into how to structure sentences to deepen a character’s point of view. I hung it above my laptop as a constant reminder of what not to say when striving to write a novel with deep POV.

Loretta Eidson writes romantic suspense and placed in the top 10 of ACFW’s 2013 Genesis contest. She has non-fiction stories published in various anthologies. Loretta completed four years of study with the Christian Writers Guild. She and her husband live in Byhalia, Mississippi. They have four children and twelve grandchildren. You can connect with Loretta on her website, Facebook or Twitter: @lorettajeidson.